


But I paid for a private room!

by Dammit_Jim



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternative Meeting, Fluff, I don’t usually write fluff so I don’t even know., Light-Hearted, M/M, Oneshot, Set after the Atlantis Mission has begun, alternative universe, does this even have any angst?, happy fic, hospital au, is this fluff??, non-graphic descriptions of bad injuries, set on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5697436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Jim/pseuds/Dammit_Jim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic inspired by the prompt:<br/>you’re in the hospital bed next to me and we fight over what to watch on the shared TV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I paid for a private room!

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely love McKay and Sheppard's relationship in the show and I can promise you that this won't be the last fic I write for these dumbasses. Next on my McShep to-do-list is a Vegas AU so watch out for that.

The first thing Sheppard wakes up to is a screeching sound coming from the patient in the hospital bed next to him. 

“But I paid for a private room!”

He tries not to listen to the conversation but the voice is grating on his ears and apparently his body has decided that it’s not going to go back to sleep until the room is quiet again.

“We understand, sir,” a nurse answers, “But at the moment we're overcrowded, and we had no where else to put him for the night.”

“Nowhere at all?”

“Tomorrow we'll hopefully be able to move him but…” her voice dropped in volume, “His injuries are quite severe.”

The man seemed to take that into account and stopped complaining, though he nonsensically grumbled until Sheppard had lost consciousness once more.

 

When he wakes to blinding sunlight his first thought is that he should have been moved by now, but instead he hears the grumbling complaints of the man from before. He's still in the same room, it seems. As he comes to full consciousness he begins to take note of the harness and metal cage-like structure they have him strapped into. He remembers vaguely hearing something about “spinal trauma” and when his doctor arrives, with a big smile and a slow-condescending tone, she tells him there’s no guarantee he’ll ever walk again. He tries not to let that get to him but…it inevitably does.

The days become long and boring and the only thing keeping him sane seems to be the TV that is almost perpetually on. Sometimes the TV is left on white-noise, though, or worse, its turned off. He dreads those moments because it leaves his mind free to dwell on the worst outcome of his injuries. Too bad he can’t move a muscle or he’d have taken the remote for himself but instead his wardmate - who he’d discovered from another argument with a nurse, was named McKay - had the remote sitting on his bedside table constantly.

Then one day McKay is flicking through the channels and Sheppard sees a flicker of a golf game before his wardmate sighs and turns the TV off. Sheppard grits his teeth and decides he’s going to have to talk to him eventually.

“Uh,” and his voice is rough and sore and he has to clear his throat to get the rest of his sentence out, “Could you turn that back on?”

McKay looks up and over at the guy whose been rigidly still for the passed few days and his mouth hangs open in a comical way, before his eyes squint in suspicion.

“So you can speak!” he exclaims.

Sheppard nods, and God if he'd known what that simple nod would have meant he would never have done it because as he would later discover he’d just given McKay permission to speak, and as he learned fairly quickly you NEVER EVER wanted to give McKay permission to speak because after that he'd never stop.

McKay shoots off into a long rant about “the medical sciences” as he calls them, and explains that he had almost been convinced Sheppard had been in a catatonic state, with all the silence and stillness and huge cage they've got him strapped into, and then he goes on to explain why golf is a dumb sport and then he suggests Sheppard would also probably like football because he looked like THAT sort of person. 

“And is that an American accent? Of course it is. But see, if you were to ask what a real sport was? Hockey! Let me tell you about hockey…"

And Sheppard just wants to watch golf, please...like...no I don't care, just put the damn TV back on. But by the time McKay remembers what the hell they were talking about the game has to have finished and Sheppard has blacked out from exhaustion because he's still on his way to recovery, and fuck it was painful enough to just listen to McKay for as long as he had.

As Sheppard discovers upon waking, now that he’s let loose McKay's tongue, McKay never shuts up. Sheppard wonders if the white-noise of the TV, or even the silence hadn’t been better. At this rate he thinks he really is going to go mad. When Sheppard can talk, he argues with McKay; they shout at each other over sports, over channels, over anything their minds can come up with. On more than one occasion a nurse has to come in and tell them to 'shut the hell up, _please_ ’ and when that happens they resort to glaring at one another.

Then one day a man edges into the room, sees McKay and then turns to give Sheppard an apologetic smile as if he knows exactly how McKay has been treating him.

“Carson! What took you so damned long! You better have brought food. They’ve been starving me here! Tell me you brought food! I really don’t want to have to call Radek or Jeannie.”

Carson gives Sheppard an unsure smile before producing a bag of who knows what - though it smells deliciously sweet and fucking wonderful, and Sheppard wishes he could eat something that wasn’t liquids, God - and McKay is practically drooling as he takes the bag.

Sheppard is surprised when Carson then turns from McKay, without even a word, and walks over to him to introduce himself. The Scottish accent is also unexpected.

“Leave him alone, Carson,” McKay says around a mouthful of what looks like muffins.

And that makes Sheppard snort, and then groan in pain because _ow_. But he’s glad to talk to someone who isn’t McKay - even if it’s fucking painful.

“Sorry McKay’s been bothering you.”

And Carson says it without even needing to ask so maybe Sheppard looks exhausted or maybe this is normal for McKay but Sheppard is thankful to have someone to complain to about his annoying wardmate. It doesn’t seem to bother McKay that they’re talking about him while he’s in the room. So that must be a usual phenomena for him too.

Then Carson surprises him again, asks his prognosis and then starts to check him over, and Sheppard suddenly gets it, he’s a doctor. He tells Sheppard he’ll walk again but it’ll be hard work and Sheppard can only nod because he’s lost the ability to speak. It’s the first positive news he's heard and God it’s brilliant. His other doctors won’t give him a definite answer…and he’s pretty sure that’s because of one of America’s favourite pass-times, aka suing people. Sheppard likes Carson.

Carson then does a check up on McKay, and he pulls back the covers to take a look at McKay’s legs and Sheppard suddenly realises he didn’t know what McKay was in for, and then he sees the bandages and Carson’s pulling them back and he probably shouldn’t be doing that because he doesn’t work here but McKay seems to be far more comfortable with him than any of the other nurses or doctors. 

Sheppard knows people have come in to check on McKay but he’s been too out of it to notice anything specific, and now he sees it. McKay has bad burns, terrible burns all up his side, from his ankle to his chest and Sheppard has to wince at that because _‘Ow! Fucking owwww?’_ and McKay hisses and groans as Carson pulls back the bandages, and gives him his own prognosis. He tells him to have them put more cream on it. McKay disagrees and justifies that it stings. Carson tells him to “buck up or it’ll scar worse than it has to.” Carson also tells him he can probably get a skin graft and McKay makes a face.

Sheppard thinks: _‘at least you’ll walk again’_ and wonders if Carson’s right about his spine. He hopes he is. Carson says his goodbyes and gives Sheppard a smile and asks if he can get him anything before he goes. Sheppard almost cries…this beautiful man understands his pain. Though, Sheppard supposes, he’s probably seen enough bedridden patients to know. Sheppard says ‘no, thanks’ and hopes Carson will come back again.

With Carson gone Sheppard and McKay go back to their usual banter, their usual arguments. They’re both checked up on regularly, and Sheppard makes more of an effort to listen to McKay’s doctors, if not his own. McKay’s apparently lucky he hasn’t lost his leg, and Sheppard has to wonder what kind of accident the man was in. He can’t imagine it being anything simple but he also can’t see McKay doing anything particularly dangerous. He knows better than to ask so he’s left wondering.

McKay goes out for a skin-graft operation a couple weeks later and in that time Sheppard manages to get a nurse to give him the remote for the TV. He gets teary while watching the football, which just happens to come on while McKay’s in op. 

Post-op McKay is groggy and Sheppard has to laugh when the man still attempts to hold an argument while drugged up. He says something about being a doctor, and that Sheppard should show him some respect. Sheppard hopes to god the man doesn’t mean a medical doctor because he has no bedside manner whatsoever. Sheppard laughs, and the laughing hurts his chest, but it feels good nonetheless. 

When McKay is back to full-alertness he works out that Sheppard has stollen the TV remote, and attempts to get it back when a nurse walks in and tells him to ‘get back into bed or else’. Sheppard keeps the remote for a week until McKay is allowed to get up. He can’t help noticing that McKay manages to make it to the bathroom every night, and yet doesn’t take the remote from his bedside table despite it being on the way.

It goes on like that for a while until McKay, seemingly unable to keep his curiosity to himself any longer asks Sheppard the question. And from what Sheppard’s begun to learn about McKay the fact he’s held on this long is a feat in itself.

“So what kind of accident were you in?”

Sheppard isn’t even offended, “Helicopter.”

“Woah,” is McKay’s answer, “And what poor bastard is getting sued for crashing it?”

Sheppard has to laugh, he's got the letter from his lawyer on his bedside table, and he thinks McKay might have seen what it’d said, though he doesn’t know how or when.

“That would be me,” he answers.

McKay raises an eyebrow, and okay maybe he didn’t know. He seems surprised to find out he’s a pilot.

“Military?” McKay asks.

Sheppard nods, “And what about you?”

“No, I’m not military.”

Sheppard laughs, “That’s not what I meant.”

McKay shoots into a debate about looks being deceiving and how he could be a soldier and Sheppard might not ever know. How would Sheppard know? He could be a brilliant soldier and Sheppard is being prejudice and rude; that’s just rude, okay!

“I know I have a bit of a pudgy look to me but I can be pudgy and also be a soldier, Sheppard, you hear me!”

Sheppard doesn’t miss the fact that McKay side-steps his question, and he wonders exactly what it is McKay does. He doubts it could be anything illegal so that would leave confidential or stupid. He thinks McKay is too smart for stupid, but too stupid for confidential. He’ll have to think about it.

Sheppard’s cage comes off a week later, and McKay is in the midst of learning stretching exercises to get the stiffness out of his badly burnt leg. McKay’s bandages come off soon afterwards, and McKay is given a walking frame which he refuses to use, of course. Sheppard rolls his eyes and calls McKay a baby.

When a nurse gently rotates Sheppard’s ankle, and he can feel it he cries with relief and McKay cheers, and says he won’t walk until Sheppard does. The doctor’s give McKay a walking stick when they can think of no other way to get him out of the room. He uses his walking stick to prod Sheppard when he annoys him, and Sheppard is half-convinced that’s the only reason McKay accepts the thing. Sheppard can’t help grinning when McKay starts going out for regular walks. He comes back a little stiff and a little grumpy but Sheppard knows he’s getting better. And that’s good.

McKay is released a week later. It takes him barely half an hour to gather his things and say goodbye to Sheppard. It’s awkward, and McKay is unusually quiet. He tells Sheppard he’s going off to change the world and Sheppard believes him. McKay says he’ll come see him when he can. Sheppard says he’ll hold him to that, though he doesn’t think he’ll see him again. McKay leaves with a lopsided smile, a modern, black cane, and a slight limp.

And then Sheppard’s ward is suddenly very, very quiet. He misses the arguments, and he misses the non-stop talking. He misses McKay.

He’s booked in for re-habilitation courses. And they’re hard. They’re physically exhausting, and emotionally taxing. He falls a lot. And he's not even afraid to admit that he cries a lot too. But he’s walking, even if it’s with effort, even if it’s only a couple steps a day, even if it’s with a frame; he’s doing it, just like Carson said he would.

Sheppard experiences loneliness, sadness, annoyance and settles on anger. McKay didn’t even leave him a phone number, he didn’t tell him what he did or where he was going. He didn’t even tell him his first name. McKay knew Sheppard’s first name, and number because he’d checked it on his way out. He might not have thought Sheppard had noticed but he had.

Surprisingly, Carson comes in to check up on him. Sheppard asks about McKay. Carson says he’s busy. Sheppard complains about the damned man, swears a lot and misses the way Carson smiles sadly, as if he knows how much Sheppard misses him.

Sheppard doesn’t refuse the walking frame, and it’s partly just to spite McKay, partly just to show he’s not that petty. A week later he asks for crutches instead.

 

Sheppard’s sitting on a park bench with a letter in his lap when a black walking stick smacks into his ankle and he cries out in surprise more than pain. A body slumps onto the bench next to him and McKay’s shooting him his lop-sided grin.

“So you’re finally up and at it, then.”

Sheppard smacks him across the head.

“Ow! What the hell was that for!”

“No calls! No nothing! You realise it’s been several months since you said you’d come and see me again!”

McKay’s grinning by the time he’s finished, “So you missed me, then.”

Sheppard sighs and looks away.

Mckay puts his walking stick beside Sheppard’s, and bends down to rub at his knee.

“Still a little stiff?” Sheppard asks.

“It is when I have to walk on it,” McKay laughs, “Damned thing will never work properly again. Though, usually I’m doing too much to notice the pain.”

Sheppard nods, and sees an opening that he can work with, “And what is it that you do?”

McKay smiles, and Sheppard has the odd thought that Mckay might have given him the opportunity to ask the question, on purpose. “This and that,” he says, before gesturing to the letter on Sheppard’s lap, “You going to open that?”

Sheppard sighs, McKay’s side-stepped his question again. He fingers the letter and shrugs.

“It’s from the airforce isn’t it?”

Sheppard raises an eyebrow, and subtly checks the envelope. His hand half-obscures the Air Force symbol and yet McKay recognises it anyway.

“Yeah,” Sheppard answers with a shrug, “How’d you know?”

“Just a guess.”

Sheppard laughs for a moment, before he realises something, “Are you airforce?” he asks, skeptically, “Are you a pilot?”

McKay shakes his head and laughs, “God no, I’m an astrophysicist.”

Sheppard frowns and opens up the letter. He’s shocked to find it’s an invitation to join a special branch of the US Air Force. He wonders how the fuck that had happened. He’d just crashed a helicopter, and been told he’d never wear military uniform again.

“So what do you say?”

Sheppard looks up and McKay is almost bouncing with excitement.

“You knew exactly what this was, didn’t you?” Sheppard asks him.

McKay frowns and looks away, playing with the hem of his jacket, “Perhaps…so are you going to say yes?”

Sheppard looks down at the document and thinks McKay has something to do with it, “It says I have to sign something.”

“Ah yeah,” McKay picks up the bag he’s brought with him and fishes out a small sheath of papers, “Take your time reading over it. I'm going to go get a coffee. You want anything?”

Sheppard feels a little overwhelmed, he shakes his head, and McKay’s up and walking surprisingly fast for a man with a limp, though Sheppard thinks it’s more out of excitement than energy.

The only indecision Sheppard has about the whole thing - because really a job’s a job, and he knows he’ll miss the military if he says no, and okay maybe he won’t be flying any time soon but he can do other things, and he’s never cared much if things are confidential or not because he has no one to talk to about it anyway. What makes him question the decision is the fact that McKay knows what this is all about, that McKay is the one to bring him the confidentiality paperwork, that McKay has just recovered from terrible burns. Sheppard wonders what the hell kind of operation could make a careful, cautious man like McKay work in something so dangerous, get badly burned, and then leave him still wanting to go back.

When McKay returns, Sheppard’s made his decision. He trusts McKay enough to ask…

“Is it worth it?”

McKay smiles and his eyes are alight with wonder when he says, “Oh definitely, definitely, trust me you’ll never regret your decision…no matter what happens.”

Sheppard nods, understands that ‘no matter what happens’ means it’s all very high-risk. It’s not so much McKay’s words that make him sign the document, as the way McKay says it.

McKay helps him to his feet, and points to a black car waiting for them, “God, I’m so excited. I’ll actually be able to tell you something of importance now,” he laughs, “All the things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done. You know I’m quite the genius, really.”

Sheppard doesn’t care about the science. There’s only one thing he’s curious about right now.

“What’s your first name?”

McKay makes a face, and then smiles, “It’s Rodney.”

“Nice to meet you Dr Rodney McKay.”

McKay laughs, “Likewise, Major John Sheppard.”


End file.
